Hunters Turned Into The Hunted

Skip Miller

After the reports of naval accidents and the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the venerable Dan Rather offered a story about hunters being hunted in the Northern Virginia woods.

It seems a group of anti-hunting folk, Friends of Animals, have taken to traipsing through the flora in search of hunters. When they find one, they ask him why he likes to dress in pseudo-military garb and shoot at animals.

"Simply, we seek to stop people from doing what we perceive as inhumane acts," Mike McIntyre said Wednesday. He works at the Friends of Animals headquarters in Norwalk, Conn. He said the group has 120,000 members and that there are member groups in each of the states.

Obviously, the hunters are not amused by deep-woods visits from the Friends. Even less amused when those Friends start promoting the "humane ethic of people's treatment of animals."

When the frost is on the pumpkin and the squirrels are gathering acorns, the woods have always belonged to the shootists.

Come Monday, when bear and deer season open in Virginia, Friends of Animals should be less willing to sally forth - big game means big guns.

The arguments generated by hunting are as old as compassion.

The hunters claim they are constitutionally guaranteed the right to go forth and blast away. The non-hunters claim wildlife is there for everybody to watch and admire, not targets for a select few.

The hunters say that wagon won't roll. Millions of animals are raised with the slaughterhouse as their sole destiny. At least the wildlife they hunt has a chance at old age.

McIntyre is one of those who says there's a difference between securing food and playing a blood sport.

"A couple hundred years ago, people hunted because they needed the meat," he said. "That's becoming increasingly irrelevant. I know plenty of hunters. But I can't think of one who chooses to hunt for the meat. They hunt because they find it exciting."

In the 1930's, Ernest Hemingway went on an African safari. One of the animals he shot was a huge lion. He posed with the dead lion, the tracker, and his gun. He sent one of the pictures to his old buddy, Ezra Pound.

Is hunting a constitutional right or is it primeval reversion? Are men hunting food or a thrill?

Last year, 418,135 small game and 343,686 big game licenses were sold in Virginia. No figures are kept on the total amount of game those hunters bagged. To make good arguments, let's say every licensed hunter shot one deer, bear, turkey, grouse, rabbit, pheasant, dove, one duck and one goose. That would make a lot of stew.

It also generates most of the revenue that supports Virginia's wildlife management and research.

Therein lies an argument McIntyre knows the Friends cannot win.

"Sometimes you hear about hunting for this altruistic goal of game management," he said. "There's a lot of truth to that, especially on the state level where fish and game departments depend largely on income from hunting and fishing licenses.

"In the same token, it's much tougher for groups like Friends of Animals to get things done by state biologists whose income may come from the same hunting and fishing fees."

But doesn't hunting help control the wildlife? Aren't bag limits set according to game population, another conservation measure? Overall, doesn't hunting ensure a healthier species and a better environment for both man and wildlife?

"I guess you could call hunting a management tool," McIntyre said. "But we think a better tool is to let mother nature take its course. We can think of no species forced to extinction because of overpopulation."

Well, if hunting generates the money to support wildlife management and a series of controls have been established to prevent overhunting, what's the problem?

"It's not humane. I think hunting is a lifestyle that is now obsolete. Look, we're not trying to tell people what to do. We just don't like what happens to a lot of animals every year."

The animals probably don't think much of it, either.

Still, it goes on because man is by nature a predator and because hunting is part of the American fabric.

There's irony at work here. Friends of Animals have taken to the woods to hunt the hunters in an effort to stop the hunting.